The latest beta of KDE‘s 3.2, beta 2, was released a few days ago. I installed the provided Fedora RPMs and had a look in this early pre-release version of the popular X11 desktop environment. Six screenshots are included. We look at both the strengths and the weaknesses of the DE.
KDE 3.2 offers a slew of new features, including an updated khtml engine, an SVG viewer/player kpart, better tab integration on Konqueror (which are now available for file management as well for web pages), CD burning via Konqueror, and even an addon-like technology, named Service Menus. Any user can hack together their own custom service menus and create their ideal addon menu without any C/C++ code. There is also a better Kiosk support, support for graphically connecting to Windows machines, and support for inline automatic spellchecking for some apps like kmail.
The Kontact manager has seen a lot of work and seamlessly integrates KMail, the address book, the calendar, a notes system and a Palm Pilot kpart. Together with the KGroupware project this can be a very strong point of KDE pitching itself to the corporate desktop when Kontact becomes more stable (currently, I find it to not be as much). The now included multi-IM solution, Kopete, also integrates seamlessly with the KAddressBook.
New applications include JuK, KPDF and KWallet, a universal password application and new versions for a geometry app and KStars (the very nice astronomy app). Developers would find new versions of KDevelop, Quanta, Umbrello (a UML modeler) and the inclusion of KCacheGrid for profiling KDE apps. An interesting new app is KDialog which let’s you create little GUI apps with simple shell scripting for use with simple tasks. A very handy tool that can do the job much faster than writing the equivelant C++ code.
KDE 3.2b2 had a copy of the latest beta of KOffice as well. The office suite looks pretty good, very well integrated together to all KDE apps, however I did manage to crash KSpread when loading a Gnumeric spreadsheet. Other new features include a Wi-Fi manager, a reworking of the KDE Center and a shuffling of some of the preference modules, the inclusion of KRandR to dynamically change screen resolutions, an updated Kooka version, a better “configure background” dialog etc.
KDE comes with a new theme as well, named Plastik. Plastik is one of the best themes I have seen on Unix/Linux, ever. It is simple, but on the same time very well designed, up to the point and without extra graphic bloat. It is clean and concise with the right amount of mouseOvers and colorings. It is just right, and I honestly hope that this theme becomes the default KDE theme instead of the hideous Keramik (remember, most of the users don’t change the defaults, so it is important to serve them the best solution each time, in this case Plastik).
There are a few more nice UI touches on 3.2, like a new vertical widget showing on the left bar of Konqueror, Quanta or KDevelop which auto-expands. Also, I love the bouncing icon when loading an app (also I believe that should be the default behavior). The Kicker modules now don’t have a visible grabbing point; you need to place your mouse on the left of each module to get it to show and that results in a cleaner-looking Kicker. The context menus on the desktop have now being cleaned up and while there is still quite a number of menu entries in there, the situation is a bit better than before. The Trash’s context menu is now just right too.
What are the best feature of KDE 3.2 in my opinion? Speed. Definitely way faster than any Gnome installation on my AthlonXP, even Slackware’s. The KDE applications seem snappy, they load fast enough, and the widget/UI performance and responsiveness is far better than GTK+’s.
I am certainly impressed by KDE’s ability to have all these new and old features integrated well together. There is an immense work put behind KDE and it shows. But it shows for the wrong reasons: too much UI and application bloat.
We have beat this issue to death for years now, and while the KDE team has actively made a lot of effort this time around to clean up a few things, the problem does remain. Konqueror’s context menu is a mess, why would I want to zip a web page or use Cervicia with it, is beyond me. And the main menu itself it just has way too many options. Konqueror is the Frankenstein of file managers, made of so many Kparts that the end result is just not good. Options of other Kparts are appearing on the main and context menu etc.
Additionally, there are too many apps shipping with KDE. This results in a huge KDE menu (while other options have been stripped out of KMenu in this version). I don’t need four text editors in the same submenu (Kate, KWrite, Kedit and Kommander-something), I need one. While each one of the four have a bit different specialty (e.g. Kate is a good programmer’s text editor) the fact remains, there should be one solution offered. KDevelop should do the rest of the job for the programmers. The second-tier applications should be offered separately via KDE’s web site for those who want them, instead of bloating the main KDE distribution.
And then there is the still terrible Kontrol Center. The KDE project seems to have acknowledged the problem because they now offer custom Konqueror views (like Gnome’s “Start Here”) and so this new trick gives the impression to the user that their control panel is leaner. But it is not. It is an… eye illusion and if you actually load the normal Kontrol Center you will get even a bigger tree with more modules than on KDE 3.1. The problem is not just that there are too many modules there, but there are two more problems: 1. Each module has 2-5 tabs full of widgets and stuff. TOO many options, too confusing as to what is where, too much bloat for features that are redundant for the vast majority of people. Too much detail. 2. There is no integration between modules. For example, there should have been a single module for keyboard and mice, with one tab for each with some basic must-have options there. Another example is that we have the theme-related modules spawn on several modules under “Appearance,” ranging from icons, color, style, etc., etc., instead of getting a single panel for all these related items with the most needed options listed there.
Some of the options found on preference dialogs should not be there at all, but work automatically. For example, I used a white-ish background image and then I couldn’t read the text on the desktop icons. KDE should have either detect the background image color and automatically adjust its icon text color all by itself, or do it the “easy way” as Windows does it and apply a dark text shadow by default. Currently, the user has to literally search on panels after panels where the “show text shadow” option is hidden (FYI, is on a panel after you clicked “advanced” on the background image panel) and when you actually find it next to more redundant options and you set the shadow as ON, it just doesn’t look good and sharp. It looks like a “mountzoura,” as we say in Greece: a blot.
Also, I would advocate for some Qt UI changes, e.g., expanding a few pixels the space between words on the application menus. Currently, they read like a sentence instead of being wisely spaced out. Also a soft line that separates the menu from the toolbars and the toolbars from each other would have been nice too, as currently they look like they have all been thrown out together with no easy way for the eye to distinguish them fast enough. See one of my screenshots to see what I mean.
Another thing I dislike is that “settings” menu that most KDE apps have, where they list 3-4 different “Configure” options in addition to the “Configure the application” option. All these configures are confusing and severely bloat the app menu; they should not be there at all. For example, the “configure toolbars” should be accessible by right-clicking the toolbars themselves for example, a-la OSX or Epiphany. The “configure the app” should be just called “Settings” and put under the Edit menu when applicable. (“Configure” is a verb and as I said in the past,is like ordering someone to do something that has never done before. UIs is about psychology too and the right wording is important).
All the above might sound like nit-picking, but rest-assured, pixel pushing, looks, user psychology and usability is a huge part of any desktop environment. And KDE is one.
KDE is great. It has the best underlying technology today compared to other X11-based environments. It is modern, flexible, and now, faster than ever before. But this UI bloat and general unpolishness that still plagues itself and its applications leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. What I would love to see on Unix (and I am sure others would too) is a clean, polished and HIGified environment (like Gnome) but with the speed, architecture, integration and infrastructure of KDE. Luckily for KDE, they have the advantage over Gnome. It is easier for them to streamline, strip out and clean up their current interface than Gnome to get that level or architectural quality that KDE today enjoys. Development tools are worlds better on KDE too: Qt Designer beats Glade and knocks it out in the first round.
My suggestion would be: Clean up KDE’s UI, polish the widgets at the Qt level and do some usability and accessibility testing. Then, remove most of the most redundant options from Konqueror, its menu, its preferences, and Kontrol center’s modules and move them to a KConfig panel (a-la GConf or a-la Registry) so both worlds are happy (advanced and newbie users). Only keep visible on panels the most important, basic options, the ones that guarantee a polished experience. If the KDE Project realizes that polish and simplicity is more important than all these almost-never-used and hard-to-find-in-a-chaos-of-panels options, adopt a HIG, get some usability engineers aboard, oh joy, we would have a winner. But as it stands today, the battle with Gnome will still stand as Gnome has an edge on usability direction and general UI polish. I would like it if KDE used Gnome’s HIG (which is actually one of the good points of Gnome, so re-use it, that would help the overall usability as a bonus for both DEs and freedesktop.org’s efforts).
The fact remains though, KDE is good enough for most people. It does the job. The beta still has bugs and applications crash quite a bit (I think some are Fedora-only issues actually), but it does look very promising. KDE has the right technology and tools. But it is so damned easy to develop for this platform that some people seem to… over-develop.
i disagree kde has bloated menus and bloated with software itself (i.e. “four text editors”, etc), it’s all because of installing ALL KDE packages which (IMO) is simply stupid desigion. Look at my laptop:
[(20:05):~ ] pkg_info|grep kde
kdebase-3.1.4 This package provides the basic applications for the KDE sy
kdelibs-3.1.4_1 This is the base set of libraries needed by KDE programs
kdenetwork-3.1.4 Network-related programs and modules for KDE
[(20:05):~ ] pkg_info|grep qt
qt-3.2.1 A C++ X GUI toolkit
So your need only FOUR packages to have a full-featured WM WITHOUT unnessesary software. Clean nad fast, with all I need.
And what is about menu usability (i.e. control center is awful) this is depend on how long you use KDE. My everyday KDE using begun with first 2.x releases (I know it then it was 1.x but it was not “everyday using”), and I’m accostomed to it
Personally, I prefer KDE abundance of options to Gnome’s “cleaner” interface. I do think “levels” of options would be a nice touch (i.e. a simplified set for newbies, an extended set for power users) and perhaps this is something they should look at for KDE 4.
As far as Kcontrol is concerned, there is a user-friendly alternative. It’s called “kde mission control” and it’s really nice for novices.
As far as K Menu “clutter” is concerned, I have to say that I don’t really know about it because I use Mandrake’s version of KDE 3.2 and it has its own menu structure. There are still lots of apps to choose from, but the menus are better laid out and there is a simple task-based menu available for newbies.
Personally, I really like this new KDE (although it is still a bit unstable…and the font size in HTML messages in Kmail is too small for my 1600×1200 resolution).
Also note that, with the new packaging scheme used by KDE, you don’t have to install everything, as the main programs are divided into separate packages.
“I added another bug that was discussed in this list:
In web-browsing mode, the up button should be removed
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70506 ”
I use this up-button while browsing very often to get to the main page after following some links to other sites.
And this is exactly why this feature is there: people actually use it!
This is a pretty decent review Eugenia.
I think the new theme is angelic. It fits KDE very well. It’s one of the best themes I have ever seen for any platform.
However, seeing those updated khtml renders of osnews, I have to say I have never been, and definitly am not impressed with the khtml rendering engine. This peave of mine carries over to other areas in the KDE/Qt environment. For example in the comparison shot between gnumeric and Kspread, I just find the Kspread icon widgets and all the menubar items to be too close and awfully busy. It’s probably because I use OS X a lot at work, but I don’t like that cramped feeling on my toolbars.
Just a little something about the file selector. I really wish they didn’t abandon file permission flags in the file selector. I would rather see a column view, with things like name, date modified, and permissions (drwxrwxrwx) to be present and optionable. I suppose the nature of multi-user Os’s makes this a negligable feature, but I personally would like it.
Also, that little green button and “lock” in the status bar of konq. just have to go, or be clarified. I don’t use KDE, and I still don’t have any idea exactly what they do, but I could make some guesses. They’re not very intuitive IMO, and haven’t changed in any releases.
If ANY GTK/GNOME DEVS are reading this, I would really like to see some “comment” items to be in the main gnome-foot-icon that’s like a win32 “start”, as you see in the kde4.png. Gnome needs this to make the system more friendly.
Eugenia is so right.
“If the KDE Project realizes that polish and simplicity is more important than all these almost-never-used and hard-to-find-in-a-chaos-of-panels options … we would have a winner.”
Examples are:
1) Korganizer still has a time offset problem when importing a cal.ics. This happens when using the add feature for multiply loaded calendars. The korganizer is way too complicated anyway. What good is calendar that cannot tell time?
2) Klipper still locks the desktop on ocassion but the bug report is closed.
3) The Kmail mime tree does not seem to serve any useful purpose. I can’t drag and drop the attachments from it.
4) There is no “undo” if you insert the wrong file association in the Konqueror file manager. The next time Kde is started it spawns many warnings. Try it youself; add *.xld instead of *.xls and then try and get rid of the misstyped *.xld. AFAIK there is no way to do it easily.
5) Too many pop ups that are annoying. EXAMPLE: put the word “attachment” in Kmail’s subject line and try and send the letter with out an attachment. Kmail will display a popup.
Thanks for the info about Konqueror. I did look in the Konqueror settings and could see no way of turning this off (it’s set on as standard in SuSE Linux). I’ll be sending SUSE a few words about this.
“Who cares about “usability heuristics” if a large group uses the DE and loves it? Your page of numbers should trump my love of something?”
People who are interested in making an application BETTER know about usability heuristics. Your obvious disdain for principles of proper GUI design indicates to me that you don’t know jack about them. If you’d like to disprove your ignorance to me, go ahead. I’m waiting. But I can guarantee you that following them with a bit of common sense will lead to better applications.
Try reading Ben Shneiderman’s “Designing the User Interface”. You may find it enlightening. Hint: there are _reasons_ people find some interfaces good and efficient.
So, if anyone’s full of it, it’s you.
-Erwos
There will be no war between K and G for the main reason that Gnome Desktop is already out… the reasons become history…(kde run too fast for them)
Now looking for, the future at my opinion Gnome has two options:
First going more to the kde field…and make a Gkde?
Second Beeing as inovative or a real alternative in this case to look more to people like XFCE by excemple…
For me the choice is betw. these two as my favorite …
Gnome is only a piece of ham in the middle with fantastics tools but not as a real desktop in comparaison of course.
I wonder if someone from the KDE team is reading this page (hopefully able to see through off topic squabble and flaming). It would be very interesting to have a comment or two from that side of the table.
Some aspects of the layout in KDE apps need some work, but it shouldn’t be a big deal. KDE’s GUI is entirely based on a layout engine. So adding padding here or there is really trivial, and in fact, can often be done at the framework layer without ever touching the application itself. Stuff like toolbars and context menus are similarly easy to fix. They’re all specified as XML or RC files referencing PNG icons. In fact, this is one of the easiest ways for non-programmers to contribute to KDE. Edit the files to get the toolbar looking the way you want, or replace the icons, and submit it as a patch to bugs.kde.org and see what they think.
Also, KOffice is still in a transitory phase — 1.3 is a big “stabilizing the infrastructure” release. 1.4 should see a lot more UI work, and they’ve already started doing stuff like replacing the dated icons with nice Crystal-style ones.
As for the little green button: to tell the truth, I don’t know what it does either, and I’m a KDE user! I think it has something to do with the multi-pane view feature. I don’t use Konqueror as a file manager (I’m a CLI addict), so maybe that’s why
For someone newer to Linux, it’s hard to choose between KDE or Gnome because there’s not a big degree of consistency between the two.
For example, using Libranet 2.8, after I get the fonts in Gnome set up kind of the way I want them and Firebird is looking pretty decent (as decent as I could manage), and the boot back into KDE, everything looks like ass again.
Plus, I click on each DE’s application launch menu and everything is in a different place. I don’t know if this is a DE issue or a distro/packaging issue, but I eventually just get frustrated with all the BS and give up.
Another thing is that both file managers are absolutely horrendous. They’re bloated as all hell (anyone ever tried Explorer in Win2k classic mode), and as far as configurability goes, compared to Directory Opus, both are child’s play.
Another thing is that both file managers are absolutely horrendous. They’re bloated as all hell (anyone ever tried Explorer in Win2k classic mode), and as far as configurability goes, compared to Directory Opus, both are child’s play.
obviously you haven’t had the opportunity to try the new nautilus (from gnome 2.5 devel).
While konqueror keeps getting more stuff, nautilus is getting simpler
That green “button” in konqueror that people are confused over:
It’s not really a button, but rather an indicator – it shows
you at a glance which pane currently has focus.
Split your konqueror view into two. Then click into each of
the two panes, and watch the green indicator.
Personally I prefer the combination of Knifty (for the Window decorations) and ThinKeramik (for the Style). ThinKeramik solves most of the problems people have with Keramik. It’s got eye candy, but not too much, and it’s got plenty of cool features and customizations (shadowed text, etc.).
A very important topic is (I think) that KDE should not be simplified too much, because now it appeals to power users who want to be able to configure all the details. So I am against leaving out the many configurations settings.
What is a good suggestion though, is to try and split the settings, into an “easy” configuration panel with few, but important options, for beginners or people that don’t care.
And providing an “advanced” configuration panel for the people who love to personalise their work environment.
Maybe the panel should have two modes, an “Easy Mode” and an “Advanced Mode”. KDE could be standard in the “Easy Mode”, good for a lot of users, but with a simple click in the menu, the “Advanced Mode” (with all panels, options, configuration possibilities) should become available.
Anyways, a great open source project it is !!
Thanks to the KDE-people !!!
Erik. (BE)
Hey I’m sorry, but english is not my native language, so it’s possible for me to make mistakes
I have been mounting my clients (Windows) My Documents folder on a tool bar in the task bar since Win95. This allows for browsing their documents from cascading menus. Right clicking on any folder or file, gives them the abillity to execute or manipulate them without ever opening Explorer.
I have tried to emulate this funtioning in a Linux (KDE) GUI, but when you add a documents quick browser folder to the Task bar (kicker),there are no right click context menus available from these cascading menus, so you must open Konqueror to do anything but, left click the file. This is sorely missed, because they are blazingly fast when the context menus are used.
They also make changing (editing) the start menus a breeze, instead of opening some separate application to edit the menus, you simply right click, cut, copy or paste them.
In windows 9x I use the Programs menu as a catch all, then build a well sorted application launcher menu on the first start menu. KDE should consider this catch all folder idea, that way all new applications would just add shortcuts to this one folder (they end up sorted alphabeticaly), then let the end user or integrater, build a nice clean application launcher menu that features only their prefered apps. The other apps are still available if you need them,just not cluttering your day to day menus.
Moving these folk over to a Linux distro is going to be a tough sell, because everyone loves these cascading menus, especially the elderly, and the very young. I had an elderly woman that was afraid to open explorer because her desktop “went away”, the cascading menus open on top of whatever she was doing, and she felt a lot more comfortable looking for her documents.
KDE really needs to explore this, its clean and neat and fast.
..rpms?
Its not so much a matter of people being dumb, but the fact that nerds have no sense of humor
“up” has NO MEANING when browsing the web.
It has. Many pages out there use a hierarchical structure. I often miss the up button in Opera (my browser when I use Windows)
Konqueror is the Frankenstein of file managers, made of so many Kparts that the end result is just not good.
I don’t need four text editors in the same submenu (Kate, KWrite, Kedit and Kommander-something), I need one.
Huh? Isn’t that a bit contradictionary on the one hand you don’t want a one-for-everything solution on the other hand you want one solution for everything. AFAIK, Kedit still exists because Kate/Kwrite (same engine) don’t have bidirectional text support yet, comparing kate to the rest is like comparing vi to nano or emacs to zile, different goals and I never encountered that Kommander-something thing.
KControl is a big mess but I prefer it to the lack of features that plagues Gnome. You can reduce the complexity of everything in KDE but that’s the responsibility of the distribution and Xandros and Lindows show that it’s possible. It’s trivial to reduce the number of buttons in the Konqueror toolbar to the layout Nautilus uses but it’s impossible to make Nautilus as powerful as Konqueror.
I actually like the settings menu because it’s a central location for all menu items that enable you to customize the application. In Gnome settings are sometimes in edit, sometimes in file, sometimes in settings, sometimes called settings, sometimes preferences, sometimes options and sometimes configure. The worst thing had to be one application (I don’t know which one, sorry) which had configure…, options…, and preferences… all next to each other in the edit menu
That said I can’t understand how KDE can still have the toggle-menubar button as the first item in the settings menu (at least it was that way in a more or less recent CVS-build) That’s plain stupid
Yes, Mandrake (in Cooker).
Check it out at your closest Mandrake FTP site.
Here’s my favorite:
http://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mandrake-devel/c…
Download the RPMs and install them manually (be careful to install them in the right order) or add the Cooker repository to your URPMI database by typing this in a console:
# urpmi.addmedia cooker ftp://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mandrake-devel/c… with synthesis.hdlist.cz
You can also use the very nifty EasyUrpmi page to set up your URPMI repositories:
http://urpmi.org/easyurpmi/index.php
I’ve heard quite a lot of people complain/mention/begrudge
the notion that konqueror is unable to better differentiate
between file browsing mode and web browsing mode – for
instance the recent posts about the “up” button.
This is _easily_ configured, people. I just went and
reconfigured my web konqueror without the up button, in
fact my web-konqueror toolbar now contains only the following:
left, right, home, reload, stop, print, security
My file-konqueror, on the other hand, *does* have the up
button. But I got rid of the home button, along with the
cervisia button, and a few others, while adding a couple
new ones.
It took me about 2 minutes to do this.
Settings -> Configure Toolbars … apply your changes.
then:
Settings -> Configure View Profiles …
Do this once, for each profile: “webbrowsing” and “File
Management”.
Done deal.
This is the power of KDE – it behaves the way *you* want
it to behave, in 95% of the cases.
LEARN it.
USE it.
LOVE it.
To wrinkle your face because it’s not as dumbed down as
what you’re used to in gnome – is sheer lameness. The
defaults *could* use some work, IMHO; but regardless, the
power is there for you to make it work _exactly_ how YOU
want it to…. now.
If you don’t like the clutter in the stinking menu… simply
go to the menu editor and DELETE THAT EXTRA EDITOR, if
having three of them is just too much for you to handle.
Etc, etc, so on and so forth – you have an EXCELLENT
desktop environment just sitting there waiting for you to
use it to it’s full potential.
If you’d rather drive an automatic economy car, then I
guess Gnome is for you. If you’re willing to spend some
extra effort in the beginning to use a manual in order to
drive something high-performance and super versatile, then
KDE is your ticket.
To install KDE, use/dabble with it for an hour or two,
then run back wimpering to Gnome, for all its “simplicity”
and so-called “HIG conformance”… is simply ridiculous.
Further, anything you don’t like – get INVOLVED… contribute,
help out, join a mailing list, write bug reports, provide
feedback, CODE – there is *so* much you could do to actualy
FIX or change the stuff you’re all nitpicking on.
The rewards are huge. Gnome’s gonna be looking mighty
pathetic next to KDE in the comming year, the gap is going
to be growing exponentialy.
Those corporate entities people seem so proud of to have
on “their side” – IBM, Sun, and whoever else; to hell with
them; their interest lies _solely_ in the ultimate prospect
of market share and profit. This is where your beloved
Gnome is going to get pigeon holed and swept right into.
Gnome will become a tool for a few corps. KDE is, was, and
will remain, a desktop env strictly developed for and by
US, without outside commercial interests involved. KDE
will stay pure to it’s origins, Gnome’s just gonna get
abused by the enterprise and the very same business that
are “supporting” it today.
…the (long) URLs got cut off in the previous message. Just make sure you use the complete URL if you want to add the repository to your URPMI database.
Those corporate entities people seem so proud of to have
on “their side” – IBM, Sun, and whoever else; to hell with
them; their interest lies _solely_ in the ultimate prospect
of market share and profit. This is where your beloved
Gnome is going to get pigeon holed and swept right into.
Gnome will become a tool for a few corps. KDE is, was, and
will remain, a desktop env strictly developed for and by
US, without outside commercial interests involved. KDE
will stay pure to it’s origins, Gnome’s just gonna get
abused by the enterprise and the very same business that
are “supporting” it today.
What a troll, isolate your self in your litle KDE world then.
> What a troll, isolate your self in your litle KDE world then.
The difference between KDE and Gnome is going to look
more and more like the difference between Redhat and
Debian. If you think that’s a troll, well, maybe you
should think a little deeper.
>Just out of curiosity, what makes u an expert on gui-issues
I am a professional UI/usability designer, I worked 2 years on such issues in UK.
The difference between KDE and Gnome is going to look
more and more like the difference between Redhat and
Debian. If you think that’s a troll, well, maybe you
should think a little deeper.
In case you don’t know RedHat is using Debian package installation and Debina is Using RedHat’s Anaconda installer, Can’t you read what he wrote, he is a troll here and China I can read you are one too, thing clear please, Don’t you atart writing flames just because you are not happy in your life.
I hate the floating text bubbles. I forget what version introduced it, but it has been a baine to my existance for years.
you move the mouse over the clock, a tool tip. you move it left, another tool tip. you move it over a task bar icon, another tool tip. If you run the mouse quickly enough over all 3 you may end up with an orphan tooltip that wont close until you reboot the computer. very very annoying.
>I hate the floating text bubbles. I forget what version
introduced it, but it has been a baine to my existance for
years.
Configure -> Desktop -> Behavior -> “Show Tooltips” …
uncheck.
No more floating text bubbles.
If you run the mouse quickly enough over all 3 you may end up with an orphan tooltip that wont close until you reboot the computer.¨
The fact that you can turn off tooltips notwithstanding (as already revealed by the other anonymous poster), you certainly don’t have to reboot the computer to get rid of those (annoying, to be sure) orphan tooltips. You can just log out then log back in. Unless you’re installing a new kernel or adding hardware (or have to turn off your machine for whatever cause), there’s scarcely a reason to reboot a Linux computer.
It might sound simple, but before you can really make a difference in terms of usability and simplicity in a community orientied project like KDE (or GNOME), you have to go through one hellride of a flamewar. Everyone who followed the discussions around GNOME 2.x and Galeon should know what I mean.
I don’t think that KDE really wants to go through this anytime soon and maybe it’s a good thing, that we have a solution for both sides of the fences. Some people prefer to adjust the desktop to what they are used to so they can be productive right away (KDE is good for that), others rather adjust themself to the desktop, hoping that it will improve their productivity or enjoyment (GNOME is good for that).
It is not enough to just implement several levels of configurability or similar solutions which were proposed, because features and options have other costs besides complex UI. To quote HP:
“I find that if you’re hard-core disciplined about having good defaults that Just Work instead of lazily adding preferences, that naturally leads the overall UI in the right direction. Issues come up via bugzilla or mailing lists or user testing, and you fix them in some way other than adding a preference, and this means you have to think about the right UI and the right way to fix problems.
Basically, using preferences as a band-aid is the root of much UI evil. It’s a big deal and a big change in direction for free software that GNOME has figured this out.”
You can agree with this or not, but this is the way many people (including me) think. Flaming us for our opinion won’t change a thing.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t respect other opinions or the technical qualities of KDE.
Another problem of configurability is, that it becomes gradually harder to find the source of bugs, also adding features becomes more tricky because you have to doublecheck that it will work with every possible combination of settings. Of course this particular issue wouldn’t be an issue in a world of unlimited ressources, which we unfortunately don’t live in.
Sometimes people look at GNOME apps and say something to the extend of “it works incredibly well, but it isn’t very configurable”, without realizing, that part of why the application works so well is, that it isn’t very configurable. You can try to find a good middleground, but it’s always a tradeoff.
I would like a seperate ‘home’ for browsing and file manager mode
I believe that 3.2 has this feature.
Newbies and other people that are overwhelmed by KDE’s numerous configuration options can easily dumb down the interface with only a few lines of code. Put the following in a file and save it as ~/.kde/share/applnk/knewbiecontrol.desktop:
[Desktop Entry]
Exec=/bin/sh -c “kcmshell -caption KNewbieControl LookNFeel/{background,kwindecoration,style,colors,fonts,screensaver}”
Icon=kcontrol
Type=Application
Name=Newbie Control Center
Nobody is a newbie for his whole life. It’s just for the first few weeks/months, after which come years/decades as (power)user. GNOME concentrates on the short newbie stage, KDE concentrates on the rest of the life. 🙂
No, the topic has nothing to with newbies and experts. Even experts want a telephone that “just works”, so they can spend more time talking than dialing.
Excellent post, Spark – well said.
When it comes down to it, really, Gnome and KDE simply
offer different solutions. Common sense would tell us
that we should see this immediately, and there would be
no arguments/flames/etc.
I think that what causes the flames, are when people try
to compare the two as if they were in the same class, when
they clearly are not: when someone says “KDE is ok, but it
would be better if it acted more like <insert Gnome attribute>”, or “Gnome is too restrictive, KDE is better
because it’s more configurable, and gives more power to
the user.”
So, these comparisons really simply end up just amounting
to subjective speculation – because they often do not
take into account the perspective/realisation of the subject or concept or feature being compared.
“User interface guidlines and studies show that round
objects are more aero dynamic and thus can be thrown
longer distances – therefore, such fruits as oranges and
apples are much better than strawberies or bananas. Thus,
my orange is better than your banana. You should make
round bananas, or you should just start using oranges.”
Whereupon the banana user replies:
“Everyone knows that fruits were made to be eaten, and
so a fruit should be made to be easily consumed – bananas
are easily peeled, they’re not too messy, and they’re easy
to bite into. Oranges are stupid, they would be better if they were more like bananas.”
Vim vs Emacs
Python vs Perl
.NET vs J2EE
Windows vs Linux
…
Gnome vs KDE
Although I still think KDE has a much more extensible and
powerfull and rich backend architecture than gnome does,
regardless of GUI arguments.
And that foundational architecture is much more difficult
to change/improve/polish than it is too polish default
high-level ui, and to make simple usability tweaks.
> No, the topic has nothing to with newbies and experts.
Even experts want a telephone that “just works”, so they
can spend more time talking than dialing.
I like to have redial and *69 and memory, speaker phone,
three way converstions, and two lines on my phone.
This might be much different than your phone – perhaps
your phone doesn’t have any of those features: “cool!”,
you say, “I don’t need to hassle with learning or configuring
anything!”.
But should you ever want any of those features, you’re
gonna have to buy a new phone.
My phone, on the other hand – I can simply ignore those
features that I’m not yet willing to learn or use; but
they’ll be there when I’m ready. All that’s required is
for me to not get too bothered with those buttons that
I’m not currently using.
If kde was a phone, it’d be like my own hypothetical phone
described above — only with the kde phone, you’d be able
to hide or rearrange the buttons and features you weren’t
currently interested in using. Of course, in order to hide
those options, you just might need to pick up the manual
or dork around a little bit.
you don’t even need to log out or reboot.. just click on it. sometimes just hovering on it is enough, and often they disappear by themselves after a while.
yeah they happen on windows too, so it’s not a KDE-only problem.
I tried KDE 3.2 beta 1 and beta 2 but I actually found them a lot slower than my Gnome 2.4 (opposite Eugenia for whatever reason) and I also found that Gnome is a lot cleaner and more intuitive for me. I tried playing with 3.2 beta1 /2 for awhile but it didn’t last too long. I was really put off by the various themes and by the file manager that seemed far more complicated than necessary. KDE may be the most trumpeted desktop but for those of us who spend all our time in applications working, what’s the point of all the customization?
Well, I find some real problems in the review when it’s about Quanta & Kommander.
1. Kommander is not a text editor. Qt Designer is mentioned so by simply starting Kommander it would be easy to find out that Kommander has more common things with Qt Designer than with any other text editor. Right, the menu name is wrong, and “Script builder” would be more accurate. Will try to find a good name.
2. “There are a few more nice UI touches on 3.2, like a new vertical widget showing on the left bar of Konqueror, Quanta or KDevelop which auto-expands.”
Unfortunately Quanta doesn’t and won’t have those in KDE 3.2, due to lack of time. Sure, the framework is there, it’s already used in some applications like Konqueror, Kate, KDevelop (maybe also Kexi), but the above statement raises a question in me: did you really started Quanta??
3. KOffice is not part of the KDE Beta 2 release, even if the Fedora packages containing the latest Beta or CVS version of it. As stated many times, KDE releases sources and whatever is mentioned in the release document is inside that version and not more.
Andras
>did you really started Quanta??
Yes, I did. Check my screenshots. And I also have a way of consistently crashing it when loading it via Konqueror’s context menu.
Some people will endlessly complain about what they call “bloat”. But for many people it is exactly what they call “bloat” that they like about an application or program. If you like it small, lean and clean, why not simply use one of the countless alternatives? You have the choice.
… is worth overdoing 😉
Just recently I started using 3.1.4 KDE along with beta Kdevelop. I think it rocks. I had never used anything from the 3.x series until I started using 3.1.4.
Usability issues: As some people have said let the distros decide how to do the menu “clutter” or have an expert, intermediate, novice option somewhere easily accessible. I, for one, don’t mind the “clutter”, even though there are some things that could be cleaned up. A “HIG” is as the name suggests – a “guideline”. This isn’t boolean logic here. The re is no absolute truth here no matter how many so-called experts tell you there is.
Technology and Development issues: There is no doubt that the technology behind KDE is more advanced than Gnome’s desktop technology. DCOP, KParts and other things makes plugin/component reuse fairly easy for the developer(along with the new KDevelop).I’ve heard the Gnome developers complain about bonobo which is based on Corba. KDevelop 3.0beta is pretty awesome. KDevelop has been around since around ’98 or so and they finally got it right with the rewrite(KParts galore). IDEAI mode kicks ass and is a good example of HIG. Anjuta is stalled and has lots of work ahead of it to be even close to KDevelop 3.0. The Anjuta developers should probably rip out at least the c/c++ parser so you can get code completion.
And finally, what’s up with the dip.t-dialiners and the .de’s? KDE is like some kind of national pride for them and any kind of criticism is taken as a personal affront on the german nation. Calm down, it’s just a desktop.
Anyway, I like the way KDE integrates apps and the desktop. Until Gnome comes up with some new/better technology I’ll be using it as my desktop.
If such options intimidate you, you can always buy a distro that will dumb it down for you.
Typical response from a narrow minded elitist. There’s no possible chance that something could be improved. No. If you offer up an *OPINION* stating that something could be done a different way, it’s just because you are too dumb to understand it. Yeah. You’re so l33t, yo. Tell me Mr. l33t, h4x0r d00d, why do you use Linux? Are you too stupid to write your own kernel?
These are the kind fo articles I like to see, thoguh I don’t agree with some of your KDE criticisims.
These are the kind of articles I love readinga t OSNEWS.COM. Criticisms with constructive suggestions, and many of the things mentioned would probably not be ramarked by anyone but Eugenia. Such as teh menu and toolbar separation, msot would just say it’s cluttered and leave it at that. I agree with just about al of Eugenia’s points, but I do wishs he went intoa lot more details regarding teh new features in this release, there are hundreds of new important features.
Also, I don’t think Kcontrol is that bad, it does have too many options ins ome areas, but waht is more problematic is that they are not as well organized as they should be. Lots should be combined, sucha s Keyboards and Mice. But overall I think it is a very good ocntrol center and just needs a bit more polishing. If you don’t wan to change the defaults you don’t need to go in it.
ALSO remember that unliek GNOME it ahs a very easy to sue search tool. THere is a find tab in which you can type what you’re looking for and quickly find it. It works great even for obscure options. I often use it because it is faster that way.
Good job and thanks!
> I don’t think that KDE really wants to go through this anytime soon and maybe it’s a good thing, that we have a solution for both sides of the fences.
I dunno.. KDE as a whole with the changes in 3.2, does sure seem headed that way. Just a review of history:
KDE in 2.x/3.x, tries to best and go above GNOME 1.x, which is known for features and eyecandy. It pretty much succeeds.
GNOME in 2.x, tries to best and go above KDE 1.x/2.x, which is known for it’s ease of use and usability. It pretty much succeeds.
In late 3.x, KDE is gradually shifting back towards KDE 1.x/GNOME 2.x and makes a larger focus on usability. In late GNOME 2.x, GNOME is shifting back towards GNOME 1.x and KDE 2.x/3.x and focusing on adding features (with new apps)
After hearing on and on and on about Gnome I thought nobody liked KDE anymore. While your article is good, I’d point out that it’s always better to have more options/preferences available than too little like Gnome. Gnome may be simplistic, but it’s WAY too simplistic for me, if it wasn’t for KDE I think i’d be using Linux for a small fraction of the time I use it for now.
Though I would agree with some things you said. KDE preferences could be simplified a bit. The only thing I noticed is that some preferences are located in many different areas giving people this impression.
I love the new theme for KDE. Every theme for KDE or Gnome that i’ve used seems a bit off without a consistent look and feel to everything.
This looks like the best DE made outside of Mac OS X’s.
Interesting choice of example.
Read Donald A. Norman’s book: The Design of Everyday things.
Page 18-22. Even the lowly telephone gets flubbed.
> Your obvious disdain for principles of proper GUI design
> indicates to me that you don’t know jack about them. Try
> reading Ben Shneiderman’s “Designing the User Interface”.
You are a theoretician:
a) Who says that Ben Shneiderman is right? He is just one person with own opinion.
b) If you belive that Ben Shneiderman is right and ignore the masses who complain about ugly looking Windows, Toolbars, Menu’s and things like that. Then there is only one word for it ‘ignorance’.
c) I am over 23 years into computer business now. You can belive it or not I made a lot of mistakes myself in my former times when developing stuff on the Amiga. I for my own learned the lesson. Sadly to see other people making the same mistakes over and over again. To get these things solved you can’t simply go and provide patches, you need to convince the maintainers, developers and people first.
Aesthetics of software is indeed important. But solving aesthetics doesn’t mean ‘go into GLADE or the XML file or the code (people still hardcode things)) and tweak 10 lines with paddings and fonts stuff. Often aesthetical abnormality occours due to problems in the framework. Simply fixing the aesthetics doesn’t solve the real issue which is the framework.
KDE (coming back to the HIG problem again) has the benefits of not having such huge problems in the aesthetics. The Toolbars are all similar, the Menus are all similar and the Windows are all similar as well. They interoperate correctly and it’s hardly possible to make mistakes in misplacing things, or have things behave strangely because the framework is better.
I give you a good example: open 10 different apps, say yelp, devhelp, abiword, evolution … and to fill up the remaining ones choose as you like.
Open the ‘Mouse & Toolbars’ preferences program and change the Toolbar behaviour and look what happens with the apps.
I do understand the needs of a HIG but it doesn’t make much sense using the GNOME HIG as argumentation in such conversations when we all know that it’s not used the way it should. It doesn’t give any advantages if 1/2 of the apps follow it and the other 1/2 not. To solve this problem you need to convince the developers/maintainers and people (maybe those who read OSNews). Then we can continue arguing the big benefits of HIG. Maybe KDE doesn’t have a HIG (maybe it does, well it does) but it’s not necessary for them to ride on it since their apps will automatically follow these rules due to it’s framework.
Sorry, but I have used KDE on a dayly basis since before KDE 2 and I agree with Eugenia all the way.
Both on the fact that KDE is beats Gnome on technical matters and that KDE usability sucks compared to Gnome. I use KDE only because Gnome so far doesn’t provide the functionality I need.
Just look at the crowded context meny in konqueror, look at the menu that pops up when you do drag & drop files, not to mention single click as default mouse behavior and the ugly, hard to read window titles in keramik.
All of this is enough to prevent new users from ever becoming long tinme users of KDE. If I had not started to use KDE back when Gnome was a bad joke I would probably not given KDE a second thought.
> Just look at the crowded context meny in konqueror
Have you tried konqueror 3.2? It’s context menus are actually less busy than Nautilus 2.4 (but perhaps not 2.5) now.
> look at the menu that pops up when you do drag & drop files,
That’s a nice feature.
>not to mention single click as default mouse behavior
single click as default is done for usability reasons.
> or and the ugly, hard to read window titles in keramik.
I agree that Keramik is a bad default theme. plastik all the way!
With regards to kfm/konqueror seperation – I use the two together often spliting the screen into tabs and paynes and having some browsing local disks – some browsing the local network – some ftp and some on web pages…. I also use the inbuilt terminal (Window->Show Terminal Emulator)
With regards to the number of buttons in konqueror I can say that I use most of them expecially the find and Text Zoom Buttons….
With regards to kcontrol…. There are too many options but there are people out there who depend on just about all of those options… Only options that can be factored out because there is a way to have KDE behave properly for everyone without the options. Fortuneatly kcontrol has a very modular nature so reworking options shouldn’t be a huge hassle. For me Gnome just does not have the options I need. I actually find Kcontrol easier to navigate than the windows control panels… Since everything is available from the one place.
“a) Who says that Ben Shneiderman is right? He is just one person with own opinion.”
The more important thing is not “is one person right?”. But is it several saying similiar things. Assuming of course your “he’s one person” implies that you’ll be swayed by numbers.
“b) If you belive that Ben Shneiderman is right and ignore the masses who complain about ugly looking Windows, Toolbars, Menu’s and things like that. Then there is only one word for it ‘ignorance’.”
The “masses” believe in a great many things. Ghosts, UFOs, The man on the grassy knoll. That doesn’t mean that they’ve always got their “reasons” straight.[1]
“c) I am over 23 years into computer business now. You can belive it or not I made a lot of mistakes myself in my former times when developing stuff on the Amiga. I for my own learned the lesson. Sadly to see other people making the same mistakes over and over again. To get these things solved you can’t simply go and provide patches, you need to convince the maintainers, developers and people first. ”
This is however the “OSS development model”, not the closed source.
[1] In short people have been studying each other for centuries. From time and mothion studies, to “how does the mind work?”, to Freuds “A cigar is just a cigar”. We’ve been picking each other apart, and as time has passed, so we’ve gotten better. While the process of building a good GUI isn’t perfect it is however built on more than just smoke an mirrors. “Sight unseen” doesn’t mean “doesn’t exists” as it applies to the human mind. Psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, those and more all come into play when designing something for the “masses”. Try designing a GUI for the Asian market, that takes into account cultural differences. How about for the handicapped? Or those who work in a steel mill?
whats wrong with keramik? lol
KDialog sounds really intresting, any chance we could get a URL?
Excellent article Eugenia. –: )
I’m BASIC USER and I want simple options for my BASIC little brain. Seriously, how many people think of themselves as BASIC?
Quote:
“3. Menu clutter…..why not have a global option somewhere that gives the user “basic user” or “power user” settings. This could be chosen as part of the first start-up wizard. The basic version could be like Mac OS X while the detailed gives the power user all the extra options. Presently KDE looks just too messy although I like having access to all the options.”
I just wanted to say that I tried out SuSE 8.2, and they have an improved control center. They added “back” icons which make the control center much more usable. It would be cool to integrate these ideas into the mainstream KDE.
My pet peeve about reviews is: Screen shots should be smaller than your target audience’s screen resolution becase … they’ll be looking at them in a browser, or a viewer, and nobody (I mean _nobody_) wants to spend their time scrolling around trying to get a sense of what they’re looking at. So if you think everyone in the world has 1280×1024, then screenshots should be 1024×768.
Someone has wondered if KDE Devels are taking a look at this. I’m not sure about the core devels, but some have. There has also been a kind user who created bug tickets at bugs.kde.org.
Before I start, a bit of background: I am a KDE developer, I have used KDE since before release 1.0; I have never used GNOME, I suck at UI and usability (thankfully for you I don’t design UI either). Also note this is all IMHO: my humble opinion; I don’t judge myself to know better than anyone else here.
Setting aside the general flames (“KDE doesn’t have HIG”, “KDE should be more like <GNOME feature>”, “Konqueror is a mess”) without explanation or base, the article and the comments do raise some interesting questions. I have read through all comments, and this is I think people have most often complained:
1) KDE needs polishing; Keramic looks ugly
2) Too much configuration, creating clutter and bloat
3) Context menus and KDE Control Center hard to navigate
4) too many text editors
My opinion, in order:
1) I love Keramik and I don’t like Plastik or Alloy (what’s with the names?). I like bright icons. But I agree that a bit of polishing is required in quite a few areas: some Crystal icons are missing (thankfully they’re being added as we speak), sometimes they don’t get loaded, etc. I can’t say much about this because I kinda like how things are now.
2) This is the hardest point. Yes, there’s a lot of configuration. And yes it probably overwhelms a novice user. But if you’d ask me if the solution was to remove the possibilities, I’d answer “No, No way in hell”. There has to be another solution than to dumb down.
This probably has to be discussed and a solution found. I don’t pretend to know it. But I’d like to have all options possible if I want to, not accessible through a hard configuration mechanism. Oh, and by the way, the new KDE framework for creating configuration files automatically generates a configuration UI: so you get lots of configuration possibilities because it’s easy to let the user choose.
3) Quite often I do get lost myself in kcontrol or in the K Menu. kcontrol has already been reorganised for 3.2 and I think it had already suffered reorganisation not long before. The sheer amount of options makes things hard to find, so this is linked with #2 above. But I don’t go to kcontrol on a day-to-day basis: once is enough for most of the tasks. Whatever I have to do more often, I know already where to find.
As for the K Menu, I don’t agree. I like having all available applications in the menu, even if I most often use Alt+F2 to launch stuff. Want application XYZ? It’s there.
Note: this could get even more cluttered as .desktop and virtual folders are standardised, so any application can easily install a menu entry.
4) KEdit, KWrite, Kate, Quanta, KDevelop.
KEdit is only there because Kate doesn’t support BiDi yet. So users of right-to-left languages would be mad at you if KEdit were removed.
KWrite and Kate are the same application.
Quanta is a web designing tool and KDevelop is a programming environment. Both are way too heavy for text-file editing (which I do in Emacs anyways). What’s interesting is that both use the same KatePart backend for their editors.
Some complaints people have here (can’t remove the Up button, KMail pops up if you write “attachment”, etc.), you can configure those. Maybe those things don’t make sense for you, but they might very well do for lots of other people. (to quote one developer when he forgot an attachment, “why can’t KMail attach ~/patch when I say ‘the patch’?”).
Finally, I’d like people that want to help (and not just troll) to use the KDE Bugzilla and post their bugs and wishes and get involved in the mailing lists. Idle speculation serves no good. Just please, please look at duplicates first, so as to save us work. Debugging symbols are greatly appreciated, as well. Please also note that KDE 3.2 is frozen for features; those will go in 3.3.
http://developer.kde.org/documentation/tutorials/kdialog/t1.html
Registry!! NOOOO!
Then I would have change to something else that DO have menues to configure everything instead of some cryptic shitty strings in some database file..
Also, I find those “lines” in GTK apps very annoying and thinks KDE and QT looks *MUCH* cleaner because it DON’T have those. And lots of icons is what I *do* need in apps for easy access to stuff you don’t want to (or can’t have) keyboard shortcuts to..
I didn’t look at the screenshots before, due to my not so high speed internet connection, but now I checked and yes you have it there. 🙂 Just that the screenshot also shows that Quanta does not have the new vertical, auto-expanding widgets. So sorry for thinking you’ve expressed your opinion without looking it at, but neverthless what you said was not true. 🙂
Regarding the crash: I can’t reproduce, so if you have time and you care about it, you may fill a bug report, with backtrace and so. Might be a packaging problem though.
Andras
There is a big difference saying that an app has too many Menu/Toolbar entries or that KDE itself is a bit unclean (the way it installs, no subcategories for include/library dirs as in GNOME or things like having 3 Editors.
But all this is in no way related to HIG.
Menu/toolbar bloat is indeed related to the HIG. You should read the first chapter of the GNOME HIG for a nice overview of usability principles http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/usabilityprinciples…
Many people believe that the GNOME HIG is nothing but pixelpushing, but it’s so much more than that; it’s a comprehensive UI document for creating well designed and easy-to-use applications.
This is due to using paragraph tags with font definitions inside them, without closing the font tags. What happens is that your HTML code opens up a paragraph and then a font tag inside of it. The font tag however is not closed until later in the html code (outside of the paragraph block.)
Konqueror is actually then following the standards on this. A font inside of a paragraph will be closed when the paragraph itself is closed. Other browsers seem to ignore this, just causing more bad HTML programming.
Placing the font tag definition outside of a paragraph tag and it instantly works without the problems that happened before.
Blaming a browser for not correctly displaying badly written HTML code is not really the best thing to do when one also state that standards should also be upheld.
Good if KDE team will hire some designers for redesign menus and applications styles. I mean gui designers. Now kde looks good but it is more cool-like style but not for proffesional work and it is not usable-flexible style.
hooray for options. I love being able to change every little thing, and I do. Gnome often does not let me: instead a gnome developer decides how things should be and I am stuck with it.
As far as app bloat goes: using debian I am able to pick and choose what apps I want, and I certainly don’t take all of them. It’s nice to have the choice there though.
Looking forward to the 3.2 release, and I sure owuldn’t mind seeing further tweaks (burn CD, cervisia etc on html context menu is dumb) Thanks to all who donate their time for this stuff.